From the Left

The left dismisses fears about the caravan as scaremongering, and argues that the US has a moral duty to consider the migrants’ asylum claims.

From the Right

The right argues that the caravan must be stopped; they do not believe economic migrants should be permitted entry, and see no reason why those fearing persecution cannot seek asylum in Mexico.

“Reports that President Donald Trump wants to send 5,000 more troops to the Southern border, at first, come as a shock. It’s a startlingly high number. To put it in perspective, NATO recently deployed 4,500 troops in the Baltic nations to deter and repel a Russian tank assault. How many troops could possibly be needed to stave off an unarmed caravan of refugees walking up through Mexico?"

“No doubt some of the caravan members will weigh the odds and decide they have a better chance of sneaking over illegally. But if even a few thousand were to try it, they would pose no unusual challenge to the Border Patrol — which apprehended nearly 6,000 people every week last year crossing from Mexico...

“[It’s worth noting that while] data specifically on refugees and those granted asylum are hard to come by... the New American Economy Research Fund looked at the 10 cities with the highest rates of refugee arrivals and found that ‘nine out of 10 of the communities actually became considerably more safe, both in terms of their levels of violent and property crime’.”

Chicago Tribune

Some posit that “the United States has sabotaged itself. The migration crisis stems not from foreign nations duping the United States but rather from American economic development policies... that have exacerbated the poverty, despair and violence such policies were supposed to alleviate."

Washington Post

Others ask, “What do we do when the caravan gets here? And more saliently: What do we do if many more caravans show up behind it?... This is not a passing crisis. It is the new normal, and its optics do nothing but intensify the cultural panic that is turning much of the West to authoritarianism as a response... Democrats can’t keep dodging immigration as a real issue."

New York Magazine

From the Right

The right argues that the caravan must be stopped; they do not believe economic migrants should be permitted entry, and see no reason why those fearing persecution cannot seek asylum in Mexico.

“Most of the coverage from the elite media [reflects] the reality that many elites simply don’t see a problem here. And anybody who does is violating the norms of political discourse, as established and enforced by the elites.”

“This week the Mexican government offered the travelers refuge, supplies and the opportunity for permanent residency in two southern states if they applied for asylum. While hundreds of the Hondurans took them up on the offer, thousands more took a vote and decided once again to reject the plan... there’s no reason the vast majority of them couldn’t remain in [Mexico]."

Hot Air

A “reasonable inference is that the migrants are motivated not by a desire to escape persecution and violence, but by a desire to participate in the American economy... from the U.S. perspective, the desire of migrants to improve their economic status provides no legal or moral imperative for permitting entry."

“Will [trying to stop the caravan] work? Maybe, maybe not, but the point is to show an executive acting like an executive in defending the country’s borders. Contrast this to the lack of effective action that took place during the ‘children’s caravans’ a few years back in the Obama administration. The conventional wisdom was that it was impossible to secure the border against unwanted intrusions... [but] voters wondered why no one was even bothering to try to secure the border."